Tabasco substitute?

Hi all,does anyone have a suggestion for a Tabasco substitute? I find it just too vinegary for my taste. It seems to be hot for just the sake of being hot, not flavourful. Louisiana hot sauce isn't much better.Obviously it is just me, but...

El Yucateco hot sauces, red and green, are not vinegar based but they are plenty hot. Cholula sauce is vinegar based but it doesn't taste vinegary the way Tabasco does. I like Cholula for every day use because it is very flavorful but not excessively hot.

Cholula fer sure, not only because it's less vinegary but because it uses the same piquin chilis that I buy dry (when I can find them) and add to my kick-ass chili. Very flavorful and just the right amount of heat.

Huy Fong Sriracha Hot Chili Sauce, maybe? Cholula is a very good brand as well. Especially their garlic hot sauce. Roland makes a somewhat subdued chili sauce. If you have any Mexican, Caribbean or Asian neighborhoods where you are, check out the grocery stores. They should have a huge variety of hot and/or spicy sauces.

I say try Cholula and Sriracha. I agree that Tobasco seems hot for the sake of being hot. Cholula isn't as hot and has tons of flavor, pretty low on sodium as far as hot sauces go. Srirach is a bit hotter, but has a nice flavor

Frank's Red Hot is vinegar based but it has more body and flavor than Tabasco. I also like a brand called Yucatan Sunshine that is made of habanero and carrot - it still has some vinegar, but there is a certain sweetness from the carrot as well.

Cooks Illustrated did a taste test of hot sauces and came to a similar conclusion about Tabasco as the OP describes:

"Tasters said the searing heat masked any other flavor in the sauce, and most found the thin, watery body to be unappealing. "Bitter, like pepper skin," said one taster. When sprinkled over a variety of breakfast staples, some tasters enjoyed Tabasco's spicier edge. One taster labeled Tabasco as an "ingredient" rather than a sauce. Our recommendation is to use Tabasco for its heat, and that's all."

And in fact, Frank's Red Hot came out the winner:"Frank's RedHot Original Hot Sauce

"Tasters liked Frank's "bright" and "tangy" notes and potent heat when sprinkled atop a portion of steamed white rice. The full, tomatoey complexity and "luxurious" body of Frank's was also a high point for many tasters. One taster put it succinctly: "Tabasco is an ingredient, while Frank's is a condiment."

I don't always agree with Cook's Illustrated, but in this case I've come to the same conclusion. I find that I use Tabasco solely as an ingredient in certain marinades and sauces, and NEVER put it on food directly. Too vinegary, not enough flavor. For hot sauce as a condiment I stick mostly to Melinda's XXXtra Hot Habanero.

Since I use chile products on a daily basis, I suggest that you find a source of ground chile (notice the spelling) powder which is from a dried variety of capsicum. I'm not citing chili powder off of the supermarket shelf because it also contains salt, cumin, and Mediterranean oregano, and besides that, it usually is too mild. Using ground chile powder avoids having to deal with vinegar, or you can add a quantity of vinegar that suits you.

One source that I have used is Pendery's out of Fort Worth, TX or access their online catalog at www.penderys.com.

I make my own sauces using fresh chiles so I guess that I'm not in a position to advise others about commercial sauces. I have a few bottles of commercial hot sauces that were given to me by friends, but I most often use a sauce of my own creation. My suggestion was to have Godslamb think ahead the next time a recipe calls for a hot sauce, and prepare one from scratch. By creating a hot sauce from individual ingredients one can control the amount of vinegar and salt. I grow chiles of several cultivars which include habaneros and ghost peppers (Bhut Jolokia). Any cultivar of lesser potency is too tame for me.

The problem that you are having with my suggestion may be due to my belonging to the "What if...?" school cooking specializing in "Cuisine Impromptu." It is rare that I use a recipe as written for a particular dish because I become creative, and that usually works out well. Recipes are just guidelines to me, but not chiseled in stone.

@jmckee you say the question was for a sauce, but it wasn't, it was "... a suggestion for a Tabasco substitute." A substitute is anything used in place of another thing, such as ground chile and vinegar as suggested by ChiliDude. This way the person might use far less vinegar than Tobasco uses thereby avoiding the "too vinegary for my taste" issue.

Even in New Orleans, very few people actually cook with tabasco, almost everyone uses crystal to cook with. Im a huge crystal fan, its got great flavor but not to much heat. I could probably drink it to be honest, its really low on the heat scale.